Kizza Besigye is one of the main opposition presidential candidates, running against incumbent President Yoweri Museveni of the ruling National Resistance Movement party.

Besigye, a retired army officer and former personal physician to Museveni during the latter's five year rebellion in the early 1980s, is the presidential candidate from the main opposition group Donne Nike Air Vapormax 2018 Scarpe Viola Scontate , the Forum for Democratic Change.

Born on April 22, 1956 in the western Ugandan district of Rukungiri, Besigye lost both of his parents while at primary school.

After obtaining a degree in human medicine in 1980 at Makerere University, Uganda's oldest University Uomo Nike Air Vapormax 2018 Scarpe Nere Scontate , Besigye joined politics as a member of the Uganda Patriotic Movement, an opposition political party which was headed by Museveni then.

He was arrested for his political activities but later escaped from prison and fled to neighboring Kenya where he practiced medicine for a short while before joining Museveni in the bush.

When Museveni came into power in 1986, Besigye rose through different military and government ranks including becoming a minister.

In 1999 he fell out with the ruling government after he wrote a document entitled critiquing government.

He was dragged to a military court martial because serving military officers are not supposed to publicly express their views.

The charges were later dropped after elders from his home area of Rukungiri brokered a deal with Museveni.

In March 2001, Besigye petitioned the Supreme Court to nullify the election results. The judges ruled that although there had been cheating and widespread irregularities, the election results could not be annulled.

After the elections Uomo Nike Air Max 97 KPU Scarpe Scuro Blu Scontate , Besigye fled to exile in South Africa after being questioned by police over allegations that he was behind a shadowy rebel group, People's Redemption Army (PRA), which was allegedly based in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

He returned from South Africa in October 2005 to contest again for the country's presidency in 2006.

Besigye was arrested and charged with alleged rape and treason for his alleged links to the PRA and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army which was then fighting in the northern part of the country.

The High Court released him on bail just in time for him to contest in the 2006 presidential elections, the country's first multiparty elections after a 25 year ban.

In the last five years, Besigye has faced several arrests by the police for leading protests and defiance campaigns in the country.

Besigye who has been pulling huge crowds throughout his three months campaigns predicts to win the Thursday polls with a landslide victory.

However, different opinion polls have ranked him second after Museveni, while Mbabazi comes third.

Besigye and Mbabazi are the main contenders to Museveni in the much anticipated elections.

by Julius Gale

JUBA， March 1 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan has set an ambitious target of planting 20 million trees in ten years in a bid to mitigate negative impacts of climate change， a senior official said Wednesday.

Joseph Africano Bartel， undersecretary in the Ministry of Environment and Forestry， said deforestation in the country has reached alarming levels due to charcoal burning and illegal timber trade.

He said under the new guidelines， regional provinces would be asked to plant 2 million trees each and residents in urban required to plant five trees in their residential plots.

"In our environment management plan， we are going to plant 20 million trees in ten years and each of the ten former states are going to plant 2 million different species of trees，" Bartel said.

Bartel added that South Sudan is seeking to enact laws to crack down on illegal timber trade， charcoal export and ban importation of plastic bags to protect the environment.

He revealed that rainfall and temperature forecasts for South Sudan in the next three months predicted less rainfall in the southwestern parts of the country， signaling a negative climate change pattern that would affect food production in the country.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) warned last year that South Sudan's forests， currently covering 33 percent of its total land area， shrink by 1.5 percent annually due to logging and deforestation as the country lacks alternative source of fuels.

The agency said forests depletion was being fueled by armed conflict， poverty and increased demand for agricultural land.

South Sudan last month launched 28 projects under the UN-led National Adaptation Program of Action (NAPAs)， making the East African country eligible to acquire funding of nearly 200 million U.S. dollars for implementation of programs seeking to address climate change after it pledged to implement some provisions of the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference (COP21).